Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad occurred from 23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943 when the German Army Group B was halted in its advance in southern Russia at the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), where the Red Army had dug in, planning to defeat the Axis Powers' planned assault on the Caucasus. The battle turned into a bloody stalemate without battle lines, and the Soviet Union devoted much of its manpower to defending the city. In the end, the Soviets were on the offensive, and they encircled the German Sixth Army. The Germans were forced to surrender on 2 February 1943. Stalingrad is often considered to be the turning point of World War II, as the Germans never regained the advantage that they had held during the summer of 1942. The Soviets would launch massive counterattacks against the Axis over the next several months, and the Germans would be forced to transfer several units in Western Europe and Central Europe to fight on the Russian front.

On 23 August 1942, 600 Luftwaffe planes attacked the city of Stalingrad with fire bombs, killing thousands of Soviet civilians (who had been ordered to stay in the city by the Red Army in order to prevent the disruption of Red Army movements). On that same day, some German troops entered the outskirts of Stalingrad, and Adolf Hitler expected that they could capture the city within days. However, the Red Army counterattacked against the Germans on 5 September, and Joseph Stalin determined that the city must be held at any cost. General Vasili Chuikov urged his men to fight as if there was no land across the Volga River, and the Soviet troops formed the Stalingrad Front under the command of Andrei Yeremenko. On 13 September, savage fighting began between the Red Army and the Axis forces, and the Soviets fought over the Mamayev Kurgan train station and the Soviet 62nd Army's headquarters, with the train station changing hands twelve times. The Soviets suffered heavy losses, including at the Red Square, but they succeeded in holding off the German assaults. By early 1942, the Soviets had the advantage, and the Soviet general Georgy Zhukov masterminded "Operation Uranus", a major counterattack against the Axis forces at the Stalingrad salient. The Romanian Third Army disintegrated, and 30,000 German and Romanian troops were captured. Hitler made a grave error by ordering the Sixth Army to hold its ground in the city rather than break out, and the Soviets besieged the Sixth Army. Manstein failed to relieve the city, and Paulus decided to surrender the Sixth Army on 31 January 1943. On 2 February, the last Axis forces in the city surrendered, ending the battle.